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One Denver homeless center moves forward, while other awaits site

Homeless men on Tuesday line up at the Denver Rescue Mission in hopes of getting in that night. (Hyoung Chang, The Denver Post)

Two years after Denver's camping ban set off protests, the city is inching closer to delivering on Mayor Michael Hancock's promise of two new homeless service centers. But both projects — a day center and a 24-hour, basic-services center — face location-related hurdles.

The closest to reality is a mostly city-funded $8.6 million project, overseen by the Denver Rescue Mission, to build a daytime community center with a courtyard waiting area, surrounded by a 10-foot wall.

A new dining area, showers and bathrooms to be built adjacent to the mission in the Ballpark neighborhood
would cater to the homeless. The courtyard at the Lawrence Street Community Center also would give men who line up on the sidewalk for overnight beds a place to wait, outside public view, in the early evenings.

Although the plan has been in the works for at least two years, some opposition is brewing in the fast-growing area, where residents and businesses are wary of any expansion of the city's greatest concentration of homeless services. The rescue mission is within a couple of blocks of two other homeless shelters.

A City Council committee is set to consider project contracts Tuesday. The Ballpark Neighborhood Association, while voicing concerns, has hired an attorney, said president Judy Schneider.

On the other front, Hancock's plan for a 24-hour "rest and resource" center — promised last July — has yet to get off the ground. City officials are still searching for a home on the edges of downtown.

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That center, likely to invite opposition by prospective neighbors almost anywhere, would provide basic drop-in services, including mental-health counseling and transitional housing for families.

The location issues underline the challenges of trying to balance the camping ban, which infuriated some homeless advocates, with approaches aimed at helping the homeless.

Hancock told The Denver Post that both centers remain priorities and that the city is "working feverishly to find a location" for the 24-hour center, although an adviser says it probably won't be in Ballpark.

Architect's rendering of the Lawrence Street Community Center. (Provided by Eidos Architects)

One of the chief opponents of the camping ban, John Parvensky of the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, says he still has concerns that both projects are misplaced when the city needs hundreds more shelter beds and more money directed toward permanent housing solutions for the homeless.

The rescue mission's center "really more placates the neighborhood by getting people out of sight — which is not, ultimately, the solution," said Parvensky, the coalition's president and a member of the city's Commission on Homelessness. "It's dealing with the symptom rather than the cause."

The rescue mission is working to raise about $2.3 million to partially reimburse the city after the center opens early next year.

Questions, concerns

At a recent neighborhood meeting, the city fielded questions and concerns based on the new center's size and logistics such as hours.

"To add additional services in one, concentrated area, it's too much for one tiny area," Schneider said. "It's a pretty small area to absorb 90 percent of the services in the city. That's what it's all boiling down to."

After speaking with The Post late last week, Schneider declined to talk further, citing a desire by board members to wait to speak out publicly.

Advocates sometimes have disagreed with the administration as the city nears the end of an initial "Ten-Year Plan to End Homelessness," which probably will be renewed soon in some fashion.

City leaders point to many strides, despite pressures from a deep recession that swelled the homeless ranks. Those range from accommodating hundreds more in temporary shelters each winter night to focusing on the struggles of military veterans among the homeless to hooking up thousands with employment, training, mentoring and housing opportunities.

Denver's Road Home, the city program charged with carrying out the 10-year plan, has other efforts underway.

The city has tried other ways to improve the area around the rescue mission.

Last year, the city fenced off Triangle Park, which had become a haven for drug-dealing. But Schneider
said the closure of the park, which soon will become a limited-access community garden, pushed drug-dealing to other streets.

A still-fresh wound

Outside the rescue mission on Tuesday afternoon, several men in line brought up the camping ban as a still-fresh wound.

Although it also affected Occupy Denver protesters in 2012, the ban was seen by some as the criminalization of homelessness. It banned unauthorized camping on public and private property.

The rescue mission's plan to replace a vacant plumbing company with the single-story, 26,000-square-foot community center and courtyard was news to the men waiting in line.

A few said they liked the idea.

"It's better than dealing with these yahoos, getting mad because we're sitting on the sidewalk," said a recently divorced man who would only provide the fake name "Jack" and said he had been staying in shelters for eight months. He said he was referring to people in the Ballpark neighborhood who want to reduce the visibility of the homeless. "I mean, it is a public sidewalk."

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